suppose I am elemental. Beneath the veneer of civilization I am a
savage. To wake up with the war-cry of the enemy in my ears, to sleep
with the--er--barking of the crocodile in my dreams, that is life!"

Worrall Brice tugged at his moustache and gazed into space over her
head. Then he spoke.

"Crocodiles don't bark," he said.

Jocelyn looked at him in astonishment. "But in your book, _Through
Trackless Paths_!" she cried. "I know it almost by heart. It was you who
taught me. What are the beautiful words? 'On the banks of the sleepy
river two great crocodiles were barking.'"

"Not 'barking,'" said Worrall. "'Basking.' It was a misprint."

"Oh!" said Jocelyn. She had a moment's awful memory of all the occasions
when she had insisted that crocodiles barked. There had been a
particularly fierce argument with Meta Richards, who had refused to
weigh even the printed word of Worrall Brice against the silence of the
Reptile House on her last visit to the Zoo.

"Well," smiled Jocelyn, "you must teach me about these things. Will you
come and see me?"

"Yes," said Worrall. He rather liked to stand and gaze into the distance
while pretty women talked to him. And Jocelyn was very pretty.

"We live in South Kensington. Come on Sunday, won't you? 99 Peele
Crescent."

"Yes," said Worrall.

. . . . .

On Sunday Jocelyn waited eagerly for him in the drawing-room of Peele
Crescent. Her father was asleep in the library, her mother was dead; so
she would have the great man to herself for an afternoon. Later she
would have him for always, for she meant to marry him. And when they
were married she was not so sure that they would live with the noise of
the crocodile barking or coughing, or whatever it did, in their ears.
She saw herself in that little house in Green Street with the noise of
motor-horns and taxi-whistles to soothe her to sleep.

Yet what a man he was! What had he said to her? She went over all his
words.... They were not many.

At six o'clock she was still waiting in the drawing-room at Peele
Crescent....

At six-thirty Worrall Brice had got as far as Peele Place....

At six-forty-five he found himself in Radcliffe Square again....

At seven o'clock, just as he was giving himself up for lost, he met a
taxi and returned to St. James's Street. He was a great traveller, but
South Kensington had been too much for him.

Next week he went back unmarried to the jungle. It was the n